Video Game April Fool’s Joke Turns Entire MMO Black and White

Early this morning, 30,000 players logged into the MMO AdventureQuest Worlds to find that the entire game had been converted to black and white. Free to play games have to cut costs somewhere, so replacing 16 million colors with an 8-bit palette should help.

“Players were presented a message that the game forgot to pay its color bill,” said Adam Bohn, CEO and Founder of AdventureQuest Worlds. “The staff is working hard to restore color to the game as soon as possible.”

It is April Fool’s Day, and Artix Entertainment, the force behind crazy web games, has released a new April Fool’s joke every year since it was founded in 2002. In previous years, Artix turned every player into a Moderator, replaced the entire game with doodle sketches, and swapped out monsters and in-game NPCs with Mechs from its fantasy giant-robot battling game. Check out the full list at: www.aq.com/gamedesignnotes .